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Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the US buy-out group, has hired Taketo Yamakawa, chief executive of GE Consumer Finance in north-east Asia, as a managing director and chief executive of its investment activities in Japan.

Yamakawa led an enterprise with over $10bn (€8.3bn) in assets and more than 4,000 employees at GE. He starts at KKR on April 1.

Sir Deryck Maughan, who recently joined KKR as a managing director and chairman of KKR Asia, said: "Tak will play a vital role in helping our portfolio companies improve their operations in Japan as well as sourcing new investment opportunities for KKR."

Yamakawa joined General Electric in 1990 and was the first Japanese national hired by GE Capital in 1992. He has been a corporate officer and vice-president of General Electric since 2000.

KKR has not yet opened its office in Tokyo but is expected to do so in the next few months.

The buy-out group is currently fundraising for an international fund which is targeting over $12bn for its final close. Sources in the private equity fundraising have told Financial News that the new fund could end closer to $15bn, eclipsing a $13.25bn fifth fund being raised by The Blackstone Group.